Growing up, I despised tomatoes. I always enjoyed tomato sauce on pizza or pasta, but eating tomatoes raw and whole was not my favorite activity. In the summer, I kept being bombarded with tomatoes at every farmers market, in every seasonal dish out, and one day I finally caved and tried a tomato. It wasn’t as disgusting and drab as I remember- in fact, it was really sweet and delightful.
The way it was prepared changed me forever: it was roasted in an oven. So, I got to experimenting and voilà, this recipe was born. Combining the bursting popping sweet flavors of oven roasted tomatoes with a fresh and light homemade pesto. Make sure to get quality sourdough bread and slice it thick to bring this poppin' bruschetta to life!
Poppin' tomatoes in that oven
Once I realized roasting tomatoes in the oven makes them sweeter because of the caramelization of the natural sugars, I knew I had to center a recipe around them. These tomatoes are not as tart and are instead slightly sweet and jammy (both in flavor and texture). I call this poppin' bruschetta because the tomatoes quite literally pop in the oven.
Not only are these tomatoes, jammy and sweet, they add vitamin C to the dish and support heart health. I personally love this dish year round. Though tomatoes are in season in the summer months (at least in California), since these are roasted, the caramelization happens and these tomatoes are sweet, even in the winter.
Pesto Pesto Pesto!
The pesto in this dish is super simple and can easily be made vegan by substituting the parmesan cheese for nutritional yeast. I personally love both, for more of an authentic flavor go for the freshly grated parmesan cheese. But if you're dairy free, the nutritional yeast adds a beautiful nuttiness and umami depth.
Poppin' Bruschetta
Ingredients
Tomatoes
- 2 pints cherry tomatoes
- 3 glugs of olive oil
- a fat pinch of salt
Pesto
- 4 cups basil leaves
- ⅓ cup walnuts or pine nuts
- 3 tablespoons good quality olive oil
- ⅓ cup parmesan cheese can sub for 2 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 3 garlic cloves
- zest and juice of 1 lemon
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 15-20 cracks of black pepper
Rest of the ingredients
- 1 loaf sourdough bread thickly sliced
- sea salt flakes to top
- 1 basil sprig for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 425F. Wash your cherry tomatoes then place them in a medium sized casserole dish (it’s okay if they’re on top of each other) and drizzle with 3 glugs of olive oil and a fat pinch of salt. Put in the oven for 40-45 minutes until they’re popped and juices have oozed out
- In a food processor, combine all of the ingredients for your pesto and blend until it’s the right consistency. Taste if it needs more salt add more salt or cheese, if you want it to be smoother, add more olive oil. Then set aside
- Thinly slice the 6 basil sprigs for garnish, set aside
- Once the tomatoes are out of the oven, thickly slice your bread, toast until it’s faintly brown then spread some pesto on each slice, top with the hot tomatoes, thinly sliced basil and sea salt flakes
- Storage: store the pesto and tomatoes in separate air tight containers in the fridge for up to 4 days
If you're looking for a more traditional bruschetta recipe, check mine out here (very fresh, very delish).
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